Don Pardo, the longtime voice of "Saturday Night Live," will return to the show this season, but he'll record his voiceovers from a studio in Tucson.
Pardo's daughter says the deep-voiced announcer debated returning to "SNL." He has been with the show since it debuted in 1975.
"He has gone back and forth, back and forth, back and forth," Dona Pardo said in an email. "As of this moment, Dad is not going back but will record from here."
Don Pardo, 92, moved to Tucson in 2005 to live closer to his daughter, Dona. Since then, he'd flown to New York more than 20 times a year to lend his voice to the opening of "SNL,"which is filmed in a studio in the GE building at Rockefeller Plaza. Pardo introduces "Weekend Update" and does any other voice work the show requires.
On the rare occasions that Pardo hadn't felt up to traveling, or bad weather kept him grounded, he'd recorded his voiceovers in Tucson and sent them to NBC electronically.
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But "SNL" creator Lorne Michaels likes having Pardo on-set.
"Lorne sees Don as a good-luck charm," Jeff Davis, who records Pardo when he's stuck in Tucson, told the Star in April.
During a 60-year career at NBC, announcing shows from "Caesar's Hour" to "The Price is Right" and "Jeopardy!" Pardo became a household voice and, eventually, a celebrity in his own right.In January, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences inducted him into its Hall of Fame.
Amy Poehler, the star of NBC's "Parks and Recreation" and former "SNL" regular, will host the Sept. 25 show, with Katy Perry as the musical guest.
